A Postcard A Day - Friday 6 January 2023 - Friday Smiles

 Hello lovely ladies, 

Happy New Year!

This year is going to be interesting for me. I am single again. It's a strange notion. I am tentatively making plans... A train journey, a visit to Italy, perhaps buying a television.

Life is good and in spite of everything I have had many smiles this week. 

I'm still in Holland with my mum, but I have have some cards with me and I will show you a nice one today:

The Isle of Arran or simply Arran is an island off the west coast of Scotland. It is the largest island in the Firth of Clyde and the seventh-largest Scottish island, at 432 square kilometres (167 sq mi).

 Historically part of Buteshire, it is in the unitary council area of North Ayrshire. In the 2011 census it had a resident population of 4,629. Though culturally and physically similar to the Hebrides, it is separated from them by the Kintyre peninsula. 

Often referred to as "Scotland in Miniature", the island is divided into highland and lowland areas by the Highland Boundary Fault and has been described as a "geologist's paradise".

The stamp is impressive. I see a cyclist:

When I looked it up, I found it is part of a series, issued in 2022 commemorating the Commonwealth Games.The vivid images feature action illustrations of selected sports and para sports: Aquatics – Diving; Boxing; Para Table Tennis; Para Powerlifting; Gymnastics – Artistic; Cycling – Mountain Bike; Athletics; and Wheelchair Basketball 3x3

The stamps were issued on Thursday 28 July, the day the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games begins. The Games were held in the city and other locations across the West Midlands for the first time

The Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games features 19 sports and eight para sports, with 72 nations and territories coming together to compete in 280 medal events

The stamps were illustrated by artist Charis Tsevis. Royal Mail collaborated closely with Birmingham 2022 on all elements of the stamps and associated product range.

So, what have I been doing with myself...

On Tuesday I met up with a friend who lives in a different part of the Netherlands and we agreed we'd meet in the middle and we met in Utrecht, literally in the middle of the Netherlands.

We both came by train and met at the station, then we walked through a large shopping mall. 

But neither of us is really interested in shopping, so we found a nice place to have lunch. It was a pancake place. 

We started with lovely warm glühwein:

Lots of smiles as you can see.

This was my lunch:

Three pancakes with salmon. It was delicious. My friend had a bagel.

Then we walked through the old town and ended up at the music box museum. Which is great fun. We forgot to take many pictures.I only have this one of the street organ,

And this piece of music making furniture even has three violins:

The above photo is mine but here is an internet image where you can see better:

We enjoyed it. I had been before but I still enjoyed it.

That is it from me today. I'm going to link to Annie at A Stitch In Time and join in with Friday Smiles.

I am sorry that I don't have many funnies today. I have them all on my computer but as I'm not at home, you are getting what I have found tonight.

Have a lovely weekend,

Keep smiling,

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 3 January 2023 - T for fairy tales

 Hello lovely ladies, Happy New Year to you all!

I am still in the Netherlands, spending some time with my mum and catching up on my sleep after the death of my dear husband. This new year is going to be very different for me. I am tentatively making plans for things I'd like to do. we'll see.

The postcard I'd like to show you today is also from the Netherlands, but from the southernmost part called Limburg. There is a small town called Valkenburg:

Apparently there is a Fairytale forest in Valkenburg.

I received this card from the Netherlands. The sender was on holiday with her husband and 3 small children and visited this Fairytale Forest.

Here are some Internet photos:

Fairytale Forest was built in 1951 by a Limburg businessman for his then 4-year-old daughter. There you can meet the countless fairytale characters for yourself, scattered in the 17 houses and castles in the leafy forest.

And this one is for Elizabeth who loves caroussel horses:

The stamps are fabulous:

The stamp on the left features the town of Goes. 

Goes is a city and municipality in the southwestern Netherlands on Zuid-Beveland, in the province of Zeeland. The city of Goes has approximately 27,000 residents.

The second stamp features a monkey. It is a (in the Netherlands) well known image from the reading board. It was a teaching aid used when my mother was a child.

This is what the reading board looks like::

The third stamp features a very famous Dutch artist: Vincent Van Gogh. 

I must admit that I don't know what the stamp on the right shows.

As I said, I am back in the country of my birth. And yesterday I had something typical Dutch for breakfast. The Dutch have chocolate sprinkles which they don't use on cakes, but they sprinkle it on bread and butter. The other day I had them on some rusks:

Mum lives in an apartment building and in the foyer there was a Christmas display:

I asked a friend to take a picture of me:

Opposite the elevator there was a decorated tree. Very festive!

It is tradition in our family to make a pink potato salad for New Year's Eve. It contained pulled beef, potatoes, gherkins, boiled eggs, mayonnaise and beetroot. This last ingredient gives it that pink colour.

I always cut the numbers out of slices of beetroot. It looks great and tastes fantastic.

 

Here I am with my lovely 98 year old mum:

I'm trying to find photos with a drink in it as today Elizabeth and Bleubeard are hosting T for Tuesday where we all feature a drink for the T-Party.

Here we are, I found one:

With a glass of bubbly in hand, wishing everyone a happy and above all healthy 2023!

Keep smiling!

Happy T-Day,

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 30 December 2022 - Friday Smiles

 Hello lovely ladies,

It's almost the end of the year. And this will be the last Friday Smiles if 2022. Let me start with a lovely steampunk postcard:

It was sent to me by Kae, who lives in Hokkaido, Japan. I don’t think the artist was mentioned on the card. If it was, I didn’t make a note of it. Sorry.

The stamps are pretty and dainty:

The stamp on the left was issued celebrating International Letter Writing Week. (2022). 

International Letter Writing Week, spanning the one-week period that includes October 9, was established at the 14th Universal Postal Union Congress held in Ottawa, Ontario, in 1957 with the aim of contributing to world peace by encouraging cultural exchanges among the people of the world through letter writing.

In Thailand and Japan. International Letter Writing Week is a highly-active event while the UPU focuses more on the International Letter-Writing Competition for Young People (established 1969) and World Post Day. The theme for the 2016 competition is “Write a letter to your 45-year-old self.

I’m still in the Netherlands with my mum. Just the two of us. But the other day my cousin, his wife and their son came to visit.

The son has the same age as my son.

Yes, we had lots of fun.

My 98 yr old mum.

I try to go for a walk every day, and yesterday I walked 7 km. One of the canals I walked past had a heron, who gladly posed for me.

My mum says that this heron is always there.

I’m going to link this with Annie’s blog A Stitch In Time and of course I’ll put some funnies at the end just to make you chuckle.

Wishing everyone a very happy, and healthy 2023.

Keep smiling,

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 27 December 2022 - T for Temari and temples

 Hello lovely ladies,

How are the holidays going? I'm in Holland at the moment, visiting my mother. We have had a lovely cozy Christmas, just the two of us. I cooked something nice and we ate and reminisced and watched some tv, etc.

I'm sorry I'm so late. I thought it was Monday today and instead I realized quite late in the day that it was Tuesday, so I am late at the party. 

Let me first show you my postcard for today:

It was sent by from a Dutchman living in Krete. The card shows the Parthenon temple in Athens. The Parthenon is a former temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, that was dedicated to the godess Athena during the 5th century BC.

The stamp is beautiful. It features the Koules or Castello a Mare, which is a fortress located at the entrance of the old port of Heraclion, on Crete, Greece.

It was built by the Repubic of Venice in the early 16th century, and is still in good condition today.

Around the same time I received a postcard from my friend Maggie who is now retired and travels a lot. She was in Italy. In Sicily to be precise. 

She visited the  Tempio della Concordia (Temple of Concordia), which is an ancient Greek temple in the Valle dei Templi in Agrigento on the south coast of Sicely, Italy. It is the largest and best-preserved Doric temple in Sicely and one of the best-preserved Greek temples in eneral, especially of the Doric order.

The stamp is interesting. It is all about Ferrari Trento. No, nothing to do with the cars but the winery. Ferrari Trento celebrated the 120 years since the foundation of the winery.

 Certainly, a great deal has changed since that long-ago year of 1902, when Giulio Ferrari decided to create a small cellar a short distance away from Trento’s Cathedral and produce just a few highly select bottles. 

This bottle of bubble could be my ticket to Elizabeth and Bleubeard's T-Party.

Now let me show you one of my most beautiful Christmas presents:

It was my lovely friend Dian who gifted me these two stunningly beautiful 'baubles'. 

They are hand made by someone called Sarah Stubley.

And the artform is called Temari and it is Japanese.

What have I been up to? Well, I've had my hair cut:

I went together with my friend Kim (on the left).

Then I got on the bus to Malaga where my sister came to collect me and I stayed at her house for two nights. While I was there we walked along the boardwalk to Marbella:

It took us about an hour to walk. It's a really lovely walk.

And the weather was lovely (I'm almost feeling guilty when I think of my blog friends in the US where they are experiencing awful blizzards.)

I know that Elizabeth loves palm trees, so here there are a few.

My sister and I stopped somewhere for lunch. We ordered a Scandinavian platter:

And we drank some blush rosé. Very delicious. Another qualifier for the T-Party!

That is it from me. Sorry I'm late.

Keep smiling,

Hugs,

Lisca